There are (and we use) "generic" anti-spam tools to reduce the number of spam submissions, but it is possible to make very narrowly targeted tools that will have a substantial positive impact on our site (by which I mean a substantial negative impact on the spammers).
One such tool could make use of the fact that a substantial fraction of our spammers use the term "merch" in their username and email address. Here's the last 15 spammers blocked on b.org:
I propose to add a module, borg_antispam, as a repository of narrowly targeted spam checks, and its first implementation would be a check for this particular term.
Now, a blanket banning of anything containing "merch" would be bad, because it could potentially eliminate a real entity (e.g., "Backdrop Designer's Merchant Association"). So instead of just blocking such submissions with no explanation, I suggest that we ask anyone blocked to email us, giving us a chance to remedy the situation for that specific person. So submitters will see something like this:
Note that i'm not explaining exactly what's wrong, because I don't want to make it easy for the spammers to figure out how to get around the blockage. (I'm hoping that they will just go away, rather than taking on the time and effort of figuring out a workaround.)
There are (and we use) "generic" anti-spam tools to reduce the number of spam submissions, but it is possible to make very narrowly targeted tools that will have a substantial positive impact on our site (by which I mean a substantial negative impact on the spammers).
One such tool could make use of the fact that a substantial fraction of our spammers use the term "merch" in their username and email address. Here's the last 15 spammers blocked on b.org:
I propose to add a module,
borg_antispam, as a repository of narrowly targeted spam checks, and its first implementation would be a check for this particular term.Now, a blanket banning of anything containing "merch" would be bad, because it could potentially eliminate a real entity (e.g., "Backdrop Designer's Merchant Association"). So instead of just blocking such submissions with no explanation, I suggest that we ask anyone blocked to email us, giving us a chance to remedy the situation for that specific person. So submitters will see something like this:
Note that i'm not explaining exactly what's wrong, because I don't want to make it easy for the spammers to figure out how to get around the blockage. (I'm hoping that they will just go away, rather than taking on the time and effort of figuring out a workaround.)
PR to follow. Comments solicited.